The privacy differential – why don't more non-US and open source firms use the NSA as marketing collateral?

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The shockwaves generated by Edward Snowden's revelations of the close collaboration between US tech giants such as Microsoft and Apple and the NSA are still reverberating through the industry. Those disclosures, together with related ones such as the involvement of the NSA in industrial espionage, as well as the asymmetric nature of US law when it comes to gathering data from foreign individuals, present something of an open goal for non-US technology companies - or so one might have thought.

On the face of it, then, it is surprising that non-US technology firms and others that can distance themselves from the US law are not proclaiming this fact more loudly. After all, there must be a considerable number of organisations that would dearly love to locate their data as far away from the attentions of the NSAas possible.

Perhaps the lack of fanfare is merely a reflection of the relative sizes of the marketing budgets available to the US tech giants and local contenders; or perhaps the shock of Snowden has yet to translate itself into meaningful action, making such messaging premature.

Can of worms?

Or maybe the alternatives to the US cloud giants are simply wary of making bold promises that may later come back to bite them. Analyst Clive Longbottom of Quocirca certainly believes that organisations need to be very careful about seeking to differentiate themselves from others on the basis of the leaks.

"In my view, trying to market off the back of Snowden would be opening a can of worms," Longbottom said. "To every possibly positive marketing message there will be a few sensible contradictions. 'Hey, we have no back doors on our system!' - bet you use equipment at the hardware level from vendors who Snowden implicated in such backdoors. 'Hey, we're open source, so it's all OK!' Sure - the NSA has never infiltrated any open source group and built in back doors through such means."

Despite the possible "worms", however, there are some companies thatare using the revelations to set themselves apart. One is security firm F-Secure, which is actively involved in promoting privacy via collaboration with pressure groups such asDon't Spy on Us and the Open Rights Group and which uses its very Finnish-ness as an asset.

"Finnish culture is very much about privacy. Freedom of speech is written into their constitution so the technology is built with the idea that people are anonymous and data is protected," said Allen Scott, F-Secure's managing director for UK and Ireland.

Scott acknowledged the dangers of over-promising on the issue, saying that any organisation promoting itself as ethical will become a target for attackers trying to prove it wrong.

"This is the sort of thing that has to be built into your company at an R&D level and a board level. If you're going to say that you're 100 per cent anything you're already open to ridicule. If you say the safest company in the world people try to hack you."

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The privacy differential - why don't more non-US and open source firms use the NSA as marketing collateral?

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Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney files nolle prosequi motion against Jesse Matthew

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NEWS Dave Chapman says city, county prosecution violates Fifth Amendment by Caelainn Carney and Will Marshall | Feb 12 2015 | 19 hours ago

Charlottesville Commonwealths Attorney Dave Chapman filed a motion of nolle prosequi Tuesday in the case against Jesse Matthew and the disappearance and murder of second-year College student Hannah Graham, thereby handing the prosecution over to Albemarle County Commonwealths Attorney Denise Lunsford.

The motion, which represents a prosecutors willing decision not to pursue charges before the defendant goes to trial or receives a verdict, was filed in order to comply with the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

The clause stipulates that a defendant cannot be tried for the same offense more than once. Specifically, the same evidence cannot be used to try a person repeatedly for a specific crime.

According to the motion filed with the General District Court in Charlottesville, the citys Commonwealths Attorney requested the charge be dropped because Matthew has already been charged with abduction with intent to defile in Albemarle County.

The prosecution of [Mr. Matthew] for [the pending charge] is duplicative and likely to become barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the motion states.

Chapman said the court jurisdictions overlapped between Albemarle and Charlottesville because Matthew was originally charged in Charlottesville, but Grahams body was later found in a field in Albemarle County.

Chapman said trying Matthew in Albemarle was a way of consolidating the relevant evidence and charges in a way that is preferable for the Commonwealth.

[It is] both efficient and appropriate in terms of the law and the justice process, he said.

Miriam Dickler, director of communications for the City of Charlottesville, said this kind of motion is fairly standard. She said there was never a charge for homicide or murder in the City of Charlottesville and the jurisdiction where remains are found is usually the one that takes the case.

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Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney files nolle prosequi motion against Jesse Matthew

NPR ombudsman: Beware First Amendment fundamentalists

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Edward Schumacher Matos last day as the listeners representative at NPR gave him one last opportunity to poke his bosses in the eyes, and he did so taking on a couple of sacred cows: the assertion of bias and the reach of the First Amendment.

In his final post last week before vacating the job, Schumacher-Matos warned of fundamentalism, but not the kind involving religion the kind involving journalists and ethics.

And he acknowledged that NPR has a bias. But not the one you might think.

As a public media that receives some 11 percent of its funding indirectly from the government, it cannot be partisan or have a declared bias. With multiple streams of other incomefoundations, corporations and individualsit also is not under the same pressure as the commercial news media to do so.

But lets be honest: NPR has a bias of sorts. It is the bias of its college-educated audienceyou and meto pick and frame stories in ways that represent our interests. This is not a liberal basis, as the far right likes to claim. It is a center-right to center-left bias interested in fact-based analysis and policy on matters such as the environment, health care, gay rights and fiscal issues, as opposed to ideology or belief.

Over my four years I received more complaints from the left than the right, and not because Republicans arent listening. Audience polls show a pretty even Republican-Democrat breakdown, with even more listeners self-identifying as independent. It is that the political debate today and coverage is between the centrists and the far right; the far left feels ignored.

You will decide for yourself whether this is a good bias for NPR to have. I like it. As the news media fractures along narrow, advocacy lines, I think the NPR breadth and framing is valuable for the nation. With its strong storytelling voice, moreover, NPR is a peculiar institution in a way that perhaps only radio and podcasts can be. It is intimate with us, and has become part of our lives.

Schumacher-Matos also criticized fundamentalism among journalists who insist on broad First Amendment protections.

The French news media may have their ethical standards, but they are not American or sacred universal ones, and they shouldnt be French ones either. The United States has never had absolute freedom of the press. And the framers of the Constitution I once held the James Madison Visiting Professor Chair on First Amendment Issues at Columbia University never intended it to. You wouldnt know this, however, from listening to the First Amendment fundamentalists piping up from Washington to Silicon Valley.

Its an odd thing for a journalist to write, attorney Eugene Volokh writes today on his Washington Post blog

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NPR ombudsman: Beware First Amendment fundamentalists

UPDATE: Group Says Teacher Memorial at School Violates First Amendment

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UPDATE 2/11/15 @ 11:25 p.m. RAVENSWOOD, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A school in Jackson County, West Virginia, is facing religious scrutiny over a memorial honoring a teacher who passed away.

Ravenswood Middle School received a letter from the Freedom of Religion Foundation, saying it violates the First Amendment.

One by one on Wednesday, cars drove by Ravenswood Middle School, catching a glimpse of what may be the most controversial thing in town.

"I think that everybody is very outspoken," said Tracie Sadecky.

Unfortunately, Sadecky remembers why the memorial was put up in the first place.

Back in 2004, Joann Christy, a teacher who taught at the school for more than a quarter of a century, was killed in an accident.

"There's so many kids that came through this school that were affected by her death, that were affected by her teachings, and now we're just trying to keep her memory alive here," Sadecky said.

Sadecky, along with some others, feel that memory may soon slip away.

The Freedom of Religion Foundation recently notified the school, saying the crosses and angels on the memorial are a violation of the separation of church and state.

"The First Amendment mandates that schools cannot advance or promote religion, so that's what this display is doing," said Patrick Elliott, a staff attorney with FORF.

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UPDATE: Group Says Teacher Memorial at School Violates First Amendment

Bitcoin Fireside Chat w BitAngels, Michael Terpin | Silicon Beach Episode 8 | Santa Monica – Video

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Bitcoin Fireside Chat w BitAngels, Michael Terpin | Silicon Beach Episode 8 | Santa Monica
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Lending Club Strategy, Bitcoin or Gold: Saving for Retirement in Today’s Economy – Video

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Lending Club Strategy, Bitcoin or Gold: Saving for Retirement in Today #39;s Economy
The saving for retirement strategy has been tough for all Americans. Gold bullion investing is typical, bitcoin as an investment has been extremely risky yet stabilizing along with other crypto-cur...

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Lending Club Strategy, Bitcoin or Gold: Saving for Retirement in Today's Economy - Video